Country diary

Sitting on the narrow humpbacked bridge and dangling my legs over the parapet was like stepping back in time. The line of alders follows the river, including two forming oxbows that cut into the moorland. The trees were at one time used by Irish settlers - immigrants of a bygone age - to make clogs. This part of Strathnairn still has a mosaic of moorland, rushes, grassland and woodland. Our house, a field away, has a Gaelic name, Achvaneran, which means "field of the milking", though whether the milking would have involved cows, sheep or goats we don't know. The tacksman of the estate lived in the thatched house that is marked on an 1866 Ordnance Survey map, although the current one was built in the year 1900. He had privileges given by the chief of the clan or the laird because he collected rents for him from the tenants. In return the tacksman was also responsible for supplying soldiers for the chief.

Below me in the sandy margins of the river a line of otter tracks showed where the animal had entered the flow of water and emerged on the far side. Perhaps it was heading for its holt under the roots of one of the alders. Otters are said to be entirely nocturnal but I have seen them fishing this river in the middle of the day. I looked carefully all along the bridge walls for signs of pine marten but there were no droppings. In the past this has always been a favourite place for pine martens to leave their territorial mark and I have seen no other signs for the last two years. A report last week, however, indicated one had killed four hens just over a mile away - hopefully it will leave our birds alone.